It's like going to giant Mall Of The Americas and finding everyone of hundreds of stores sells same thing, only some have more items, or more selection, or cheaper prices.

This involves a principle well known to people who produce commercials for politicians. If your politician is only one on TV tonight, a lot of voters are going to believe what he says. But if there is another politician on TV saying exact opposite of what your politician is saying, nobody is going to believe either one of them. The opposing views cancel each other out.

On search engines, opposing sites cancel each other out (one of reasons a lot of people get frustrated using them and, according to a recent New York Times report, fewer and fewer people are turning to search engines.)

The solution. Recognize limitations of search engines. You'll attract a lot more BUYING customers from articles you write and send out, from print or TV ad you run, ezine ad you place, or from good word-of-mouth former customers send around Internet.

In these situations, you are reaching people who may not know of other sites like yours. They find your site, figure you are just what they have been looking for, and buy. They struggle with cognitive dissonance (remember that term from Psychology class?) of having too many choices.

You also don't want to give up completely on search engines. Figure that when a person finds your site, they aren't nearly ready to buy. For that, you have to give them more time. You must be there again and again to remind them about your expertise in field and great deals you offer.

Do this with your own email list. Do everything possible to get search engine visitor to put her email address in your subscribe form so she can receive your clever tips or product updates on a regular basis.

If you've been advertising your business in a variety of ways for many years, you have already discovered I'm not reinventing wheel here. Once we get past all new visitors a fresh advertising method can bring, we start to focus on QUALITIY of those visitors.

Recognize true quality of search engine traffic, then plan to groom, convert, and train those visitors to be buying customers.

3) Linkagexpress: http://www.linkagexpress.com

This service hand tailors a linkage campaign specifically for your website. They find links in your niche market and guarantee to increase your traffic in only 30 days or less. Take advantage of free link popularity consultation offered to see if it's right for you. A minimum of 50 link requests is required, with Campaigns starting as low as $500. That breaks down to a per link request cost of $10.00 a link.

4) Zeus: http://www.Cyber-Robotics.com

Easy to use, this Internet robot builds a link directory and creates reciprocal links for your website all on its own. Well, ok, you have to help a little bit. The software sends personalized reciprocal link requests under your supervision, after you visit sites and approve ones you want to include in your directory. There are two versions available: Pro for $199.00 or a free sponsored version that is limited.

5) LinkTrader: http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com/linktrader.html

This handy piece of free software allows you to enter in url's of all sites that are suppose to be linking to you and run a live report. After LinkTrader scans sites in your list it generates a report of sites that do and don't have your link. An optional email can be sent to each site asking why they have removed your link if you like.

6) LinkCrafter: http://linkcrafter.bannermation.com/

This free piece of Windows software will automatically find pages related to yours, creates link to them, and notify their owners that you have done so. This software was given ZD Net's 5 star rating.

Gathering reciprocal links for your website is a powerful promotional tool that you should be utilizing in order to increase your traffic and improve your link popularity. By adding only relevant links that relate to your site's topic you'll also be adding an additional value for your visitors as well. Popularity was important in High School and on Internet it's no different. If you use it to your advantage you'll be one of most popular sites on web in no time at all.....and that you can count on.